The polyethylene (PE) coatings could be very promising for various branches of industry due to their chemical stability and impact resistance. Plasma modification of powder has recently attracted much interest because of new prospects to control the interfacial properties. Plasma modification also significantly enhanced the adhesion of the polymer to the substrate. Powders find wide application in various branches of industry like paintings, biotechnology, filling for composite materials etc., but the plasma modification of powder surface has not found such application as plasma modification of flat solid materials. This is due to problems connected with the three dimensional geometry, necessity of solid mixing (due to the aggregation phenomenon) and the large surface area of powders which should be treated. We investigated plasma modification of PE powder, its adhesion properties on steel surface and mechanism influencing this adhesion. PE powder was modified using various working gases and chemicals. It was found that adhesion properties were strongly influenced by concentration of oxygen containing groups and also by PE crosslinking after modification. The value of crosslinking depends on used working gas and chemicals. The ternary mixture of O2/H2O/methanol was found to be an appropriate working gas for plasma treatment of PE for adhesion purposes. The treated PE had good wettability, low crosslinking and very high adhesion to the steel substrate.